Book design for Bill Viola, by David Ross, Whitney Museum of
American Art/Flammarion, 1998.

Born
in Mexico and now living in Los Angeles, Rebeca Méndez
thrives on the threshold of disciplines and cultures, working in
the boundary spaces between art and design, and between Mexico and
the United States. She has done exceptional corporate work through
her own business—Rebeca Méndez Design, founded in 1996—and for
Ogilvy & Mather's Brand Integration Group, Wieden + Kennedy and
Carl Seltzer Design, and earned top honors in graphic design
circles (from Graphis and AIGA, among others), but she is
also an exhibiting artist. When she discusses her work, which
delicately integrates the organic and the digital in its aesthetic,
she cites her photography and architectural collaborations long
before she mentions her brand-identity projects. Rather than
considering these practices as distinct endeavors with little
relationship to each other, Méndez instead sees them as part of a
larger cycle of creative activity united by a clear set of values
and integrity. However, it took her a long time to figure this
out.

Méndez explains that when she
graduated from Art Center College
of Design with a BFA in 1984, she was like a deer in the
headlights. “I was educated with a very conservative mentality that
said you should obey the industry, and that nearly killed me,” she
says. Having arrived in the States as a self-described Communist
Manifesto—carrying 18-year-old from Mexico City, Méndez later
took a job at Carl Seltzer Design, where she recalls one of her
first assignments, for Lockheed, a project based on the stealth
bomber. The psychic disconnect almost convinced her that she'd
chosen the wrong career. Luckily, a commission from the Getty
Center to design a fellowships poster helped reorient her.

Méndez's three tips for your
practice:

1. Experiment—create
work for yourself, independent of clients,
responding to your own questions and curiosity.

The Getty project brief was cheerfully
broad: go into the Getty
research vaults, look at the materials and find a way to represent
the Center. In her subsequent wanderings, Méndez happened to
stumble upon the work of several Fluxus artists, including that of
George Brecht and Yoko Ono, and was smitten; her poster was based
on a Brecht piece, and her excitement over the anarchic energy of
Fluxus, combined with the opportunity to produce something that was
at once compelling, creative and unique, made Méndez realize that
her future was indeed in design—rather, design that leans strongly
toward art, and in a mode that adheres to her own values and
creative impulses.

Méndez returned to
Art Center in 1989 to serve as the school's
design director while earning her MFA in digital arts, which she
completed in 1996. During this period, she honed a more critical
attitude, taking direction from the dictates of designers such as
Bruce Mau and the work being created at CalArts and Cranbrook.
Design, she realized, is not merely about solving the problems of
corporate clients, and indeed, one of her current mantras—be
disobedient—emerged from this period. That said, Méndez also
advocates a tripartite respect for experimentation, collaboration
and principled commercial work. “It's taken me all these years to
get here and to realize that when I'm doing all three of these
things, I will not have to abandon my integrity when I'm doing
commercial work.”

Even a cursory
glance at Méndez's CV will amply demonstrate her
commitment to collaboration. Her creative co-conspirators have
included filmmaker Mike Figgis, architect Thom Mayne and video
artist Bill Viola. She also works on many projects with her life
and business partner Adam Eeuwens, including the developing
16mm-and-Hi-Def video series About to Happen, which
“explores issues of space and time by studying the forces of nature
modulated through technology.”

2. Collaborate—work with or form a
collective of your friends
and peers, especially those in other disciplines (writers,
architects, artists, musicians, dancers).

Méndez is fascinated with large-scale works,
often using murals,
as well as light and digital media, in a way that transforms
architectural objects into immersive interfaces. She is currently
working on the façade and interiors of a condominium building in
Tokyo, as well as a group of eight large murals for the County
Registrar's office in Los Angeles. This project, she says, allows
her to combine her interest in public art, conceptual art and
visual culture.

It is this mix, with a
clear emphasis on having an impact on
culture, that Méndez finds most satisfying. She is committed to
making change—social and political change in terms of the diversity
of designers—as well as uncovering the ways in which power
functions. This commitment contributes in part to her decision to
remain in Los Angeles, where what she calls the clash of cultures
and the ensuing connections and visual vitality help feed her own
creativity. She cites her studio's ongoing work as “brand stewards”
for Peace Over Violence, a local social services agency that
supports victims of abuse, as critical to her practice.

She also appreciates the “lateral
arrangement” that often
characterizes collaboration in Los Angeles; rather than the
hierarchical pyramid of the client/designer mentality in other
places, this city, Méndez argues, is much more open to a
side-by-side process. Similarly, L.A.'s Wild West legacy lingers,
supporting Méndez in her own desire to keep pushing into new
territories. “One of the things that may really be to my detriment
is the fact that as soon as I learn how to do something, I set it
aside and move on to something new,” she says. “I am not a good
businesswoman, but it's a choice—I have chosen a much more
creative direction.”

3. Have integrity—do your professional work
without abandoning
your personal convictions and values.

In her teachings as a tenured professor in
the Design|Media Arts
program at the University of California, Los Angeles, Méndez
embodies what she herself has learned. She refuses to be “the
expert” and constantly strives to destabilize predictable
hierarchies and traditional pedagogical practices. And if her
students feel secure, having defined a clear sense of identity, she
insists that it is this moment that demands interrogation. “You
have to continue that process of questioning,” she says, adding
that UCLA, as a research institution, has helped her in this
endeavor. “The core of design comes from a critical mind, and UCLA
has helped to open the space for me to do that.”

Méndez has also chosen a much more outspoken
path and insists
that, with extensive distributed communication, having a voice is
more important than ever. “One of the most difficult things I teach
in my classes is that process of waking up to having something to
say,” she says. “We constantly download and consume—too often we
just swallow what's given to us. But the internet is helping us be
more active in having things to make and share, in having an impact
and in allowing new voices to speak. That's what I look forward to:
we should be a sharing culture.”